I am a nurse. I see a lot. Things you probably would blush over are every day conversations for me. (Example: Asking a patient, "Have you moved your bowels today?" with a straight face. And remaining utterly serious as I listen to the answer.) Yes, I deal with the sides of humanity that aren't appropriate conversation for the civilized dinner table. Perhaps the most surprising part of this vocation, however, is not the fascinating and disgusting medical facts I discover, but how many times a day I encounter irony. And I was never an English major!

Seemingly contradictory, and yet side by side and utterly inseparable. Such as the truth that the same persons who gave us profound beauty and insight (Michelangelo, Plato, Augustine, Jane Austin, Mother Teresa, etc.) also moved their bowels, passed gas, vomited, and expectorated. I am often struck by the irony that each human being has inherent dignity as my patient blurts out absolutely preposterous statements about their health. “Excuse me, I passed gas.”While being in the medical field certainly amplifies the irony that is the human existence, every good Catholic experiences this clash of truths. You see, as Catholics, we are inherently idealists. I don't care if you're a realist, a cynic, or even a pessimist by nature. Welcome to the Catholic Church, where we deal in the Good, True, Beautiful, and perfect. In comes the irony. Welcome to the real world, where we deal with blood, guts, sweat, tears, evil, lies, ugliness, and all that is imperfect. How does one reconcile the experience of our imperfect world with the perfect ideals of the Catholic Church? How can we know that the Church has the Truth in black and white when we experience a world full of gray? (Disclaimer: When I say this, I do not mean to imply that the Catholic Church is not part of the “real world”. The Son of God understood blood, sweat, and tears more than I ever will, and He established this Church as His bride. However, there sometimes seems to be a gap between the Catechism and what happens out there in our daily lives. Keep reading.)

To illustrate this, here’s another nursing example. another nursing example. Many of my patients are on birth control. I know that birth control is not only bad for my patient's body, but also disrespectful to the gift of their fertility and bad for their soul. Ideally, they would abstain from sex totally if unmarried, and if married, use NFP and abstain during fertile times when there is a serious reason to postpone pregnancy. This is the type of family planning that the Church supports, because it is respectful of their inherent dignity and the dignity of all human life. However, I cannot walk into my patient's room and hand them theology when they want a pill. Why? Because I'll lose them at "sex should be unitive and procreative". It takes a long time, a life time, to fully understand and embrace all the Truth of the Catholic Church. I will not convince a patient not to use birth control in one five-minute conversation, unless they'd already been grappling with the issue. You can't hand someone a steak dinner if all they can handle is clear liquids.

So how do we deal with this? How do we call people on to the heroic virtue that the Church calls us to while accepting the human condition? How do you deal with the irony!?

Well, first off, irony is supposed to make you laugh. So my first suggestion is that we laugh, and not take ourselves too seriously. (Come on, farts are funny.)Alright, now take a deep breath. The next step to dealing with the irony is to know the ideal. Know what the Church teaches, and why they teach it, and then BELIEVE IT. Catholicism helps us to bridge the gap between what ought to be and what is, so we have to know what ought to be even if it doesn't seem to line up with reality. Dig deeper.Because I've learned that if I have a problem with Mama Church, usually I'm wrong, not her. And listen. It's okay to believe in ideals. What is life if there is no ideal to strive for and nothing good enough to fight and die for?

You might be thinking, "Ok, I might have the black and white truth, but I'm still stuck in a world of gray. What do I do?" Live the ideal. Set the example. Christ set the example for us. He was on earth, subject to all the best and worst of the human condition, and was without sin. He told us He loved us, He told us the Truth, and He didn't back down even when they arrested Him, tortured Him, and killed Him. (But don't worry, He rose from the dead, so it's all good.) If you want people to believe that heroic virtue is possible, you can't just tell them. You have to SHOW them. Live as Christ did, loving the seemingly unloveable, sacrificing everything because he saw past the muck of who we are to the reality of who He made us to be.

Okay, so now you're good, but what about everyone else? This is where the clash of truths really hits, when our lifestyle totally contradicts what the world says is "natural". This is the truly hard part of heroic virtue: meeting people where they are, while not compromising the truth. It's a delicate balance. Do your best. The key here is to have compassion and use your common sense (because being an idealist doesn’t mean you lack common sense). There are two extremes to avoid: 1. Playing God and telling people they’re going to hell; 2. Adopting the “I’m ok, you’re okay, everyone is ok” lie of relativism. Don’t pretend bad is good, even to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. But don’t use the ideals as a sword and cut all violators to pieces. Let the one without sin cast the first stone. The bottom line: Love. Love people enough to accept the baggage that comes with being human, but love them too much to let them stay in the muck. (So for me, that means not giving my patients birth control, but gauging their openness before I spring all of Theology of the Body on them, for example.)

To sum up, here's how we deal with the irony of clashing truths in our life in three simple steps:

1. Know the truth.

2. Live the truth.

3. Meet people where they are, and treat them with compassion.

As Andrew quipped most poignantly in his last post: "Remember that Catholicism is a package deal. By choosing it, you choose not just the easy parts, but the difficult teachings as well. We are calling the world to a higher standard of living and must therefore exemplify this discipline of following Church teachings in our own lives if we wish to effectively evangelize."